Cable trays in general have been used in power stations and large industrial plants for a number of years to support and route various cables through the plants rather than placing these cables inside a conduit. These cable trays are normally supported from a wall or a ceiling at levels which are above a person's head in order to avoid obstructing normal floor space. An alternative to the elevated cable tray has been elevated distribution ducts which are also normally mounted from a wall or a ceiling at elevations so as not to interfere with a person standing on the floor and thus again conserve floor space.
In many multi-floor buildings, a current practice is to utilize poured concrete floors. Electrical conductor distribution ducts are normally provided within the poured concrete of these floors in order to provide electrical power distribution to various locations within the building. These electrical power distribution ducts are permanently located within the poured concrete making it impossible to accommodate the rearrangement of equipment as both the use of the floor space changes as well as to accommodate the changes in the equipment due to changes in technology. This has lead to the development of raised floors for certain uses of floor space.
Computer rooms, data processing rooms and electronic equipment rooms, in general, are examples of room uses wherein the overhead wiring distribution approach and/or the power distribution ducts have been partially or totally replaced by the distribution of wires and cables on top of the concrete subfloor and below a removable--panel raised floor on which the electrical equipment is placed. These raised floors are normally supported on pedestal assemblies and the area below the raised floor is designed to be utilized as access for the distribution of the various electrical cables.
With the increased complexity of electronic equipment and the increasing number of pieces of equipment being placed in a single room due to the equipment continuously becoming smaller, the interconnection of these pieces of electronic equipment by communication cables and power cables has become more complex. The space between the subfloor and the raised panel floor is somewhat restricted and there may be times when there is moisture on the concrete subfloor such as due to condensation. Cables lying on the concrete subfloor have to remain unaffected by the moisture on the subfloor and these cables also need to avoid the problems associated with entanglement. Cables simply lying on a concrete subfloor can become so entangled that it is extremely difficult to remove one particular cable from the mass of cables on the subfloor should the individual cable need to be changed or rerouted for any reason.
Prior art cable trays have been developed to eliminate some of the problems associated with the routing of cables beneath the raised panel floor. Typical prior art cable trays are suspended from the structure which supports the removable panels of the raised panel floor. These prior art cable trays are normally suspended between the raised panel floor and the concrete subfloor and provide an organized route for the various cables to travel in order to interconnect the numerous pieces of electronic equipment placed on the raised panel floor.
While the introduction of these prior art cable trays has significantly reduced the entanglement and moisture problems associated with the concrete subfloors, they are not without their problems. As the number of pieces of electronic equipment being placed in a single room increases so does the number of electrical cables. Consequently the number of electrical cables which are being placed within the prior art cable trays is also increasing. This increasing number of cables in the prior art cable trays can now lead to an entanglement problem within the tray. In addition, when it is desired to have specific cables kept separate from each other, the prior art cable trays are used to route one, or one set of cables, while the second or other set of cables, which need to be kept separate, are routed across the concrete subfloor encountering the problems explained above.
Accordingly there is a need for a cable tray support system which can accommodate the larger number of cables being routed beneath the raised panel floor as well as providing for the separate routing of specific cables without relying on the subfloor beneath the raised panel floor for routing of cables.